New parties partisanship (flings vs old married couples?)

With Roberto Pannico we have been exploring the consequences of party system change  at the individual level. The irruption of Podemos and Ciudadanos as new parties in 2014 and 2015 allows to assess to what extent the citizens that developped a partisan attachment to these new parties changed their attitudes compared with those that did not. We use a DiD panel data model to assess to what extent partisanship with new parties changed political interest, trust in political institutions and intensity of party closeness, as a fling with a new party could do, compared to ramaining attached to your old party couple.

We find that the consequences of becoming a partisan of a new party are different depending on weather citizens had or not a previous attachment to an old party. New parties have a “fling” effect increasing political interest among those that were not close to any party before, and increasing the intensity of party closeness among those that came from an old party. But they also have a surprisingly strong “old married couple” effect among those that have remained loyal to their old party, increasing their trust in political institutions.

If you want to know more we are presenting some preliminary findings Monday 28th May at 1pm at our DEC seminar (Sala de Juntes, Fac. de Ciències Polítiques i Sociologia).